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Wednesday, August 3, 2016

#IWSG for August 2016

The Insecure Writer's Support Group (IWSG) is the brilliant idea of Alex J. Cavanaugh. The purpose of the group is to share doubts and insecurities and to encourage one another. Please visit the other participants and share your support. A kind word goes a long way.

I was writing since I could make sentences. I still have a poem about the moon I wrote when I was five which won a ribbon in my town's fall festival. I have the binders of short stories I wrote about the neighborhood kids from when I was eight through my teen years.

The first short story I tried to get published was rejected, and I threw it away. I was eighteen, and I had very thin skin. I remember it was about a college aged psychopath killing the boys who didn't love her back, and who really didn't know she existed at all. That rejection kept me from letting anyone else see my writing for over twelve years.I did keep writing, though. When I finally started submitting stories to venues again, more rejections came my way, but I was older and wiser more stubborn. I kept putting myself out there until a little drabble about alien pet care was accepted. My first acceptance. And I made a dollar from it! I would have been ecstatic without the dollar, but I keep it in a frame on my desk to remind me to never give up.

That story your wrote in college sounds so creepy and really good! Sorry it ended up causing you so much disappointment. But glad you got back to writing as you have more great stories than I can count. :)

You're so lucky you still have most of those old stories. My mother threw out almost all of the picture books and novelette- and novella-length stories I wrote when we left New York in 1996. She put them out with the recyclables, convinced there wasn't room for that one box in the moving truck.

It's funny, but there's a magical line you cross over which you can take the rejection. I got a few and gave up, and it was over a decade before I tried again after that, too. And now the rejections roll off my back (for the most part.)

Click, Read, Enjoy.

About Me

I'm a writer, blogger, and geek mom. I write paranormal romance and urban fantasy. I love a dark and gritty story. I have four degrees which don't help at all with motherhood, but make me a great Jeopardy player. Member of S.C.I.F.I. and Untethered Realms.